Types of Expats in Thailand

After living in Thailand for a year or so you come across many different types of expats, which one do you fall under?

The school teacher

The school teacher is the easiest type of expat to spot, found mostly on the BTS or MRT, wearing a badly fitted shirt a few sizes too big for them, huge sweat patch on their back and black trousers a few inches too short showing their white socks. They usually rock an expressionless face, eyes glazed over while heading home to their 3,000 baht 24sq meter apartment that they share with their girlfriend Nok and their cat Noodles.

The poker player

The poker player won’t usually been seen until after the sun goes down as they are night owls of Thailand. They tend to have a disregard for money as all they do is sit in front of a screen clicking buttons and their bank accounts seem to fill up. They have their own elite circles and they are difficult to spot unless you are in the know. They live the dream by partying when they want, dropping stacks like it aint chit change and doing what ever it is they want.

Pro tip: To locate a group of pokers players in a club or bar, find a big group of skinny guys around a table in a club with exactly 0 ladies around them.

The annoying Scandi/French men

Nobody really knows what these people do, because they never leave their own social circles, the Scandi’s will always stick with the Scandi’s, and the French, well f*** the French that’s what. This type of expat is easy to spot, they won’t make any effort to talk too you or show you any kind of common courtesy when in a public arena.

They are aware you can’t speak their native tongue, so instead of speaking English to involve you in the conversation they will disregard you completely while standing only a few centimeters away and go ahead and talk in their own native dialect.

The infected wxpat (yellowf ever)

The infected expat has been in Thailand for a few months and for the first time in his life, girls are actually talking to him, and before he realizes it, he is infected with Yellow Fever. Yellow Fever is the infection that makes you find any Asian girl attractive and your appetite for girls of all other races becomes neutralized.

This is due to the amount of attention girls are giving them in Thailand for simply being white skinned. They no longer find white girls as attractive and start to build a resentment towards them that grows stronger with each passing day.

The white knight

These types of expats falls in love with the first girl that batters her eye lids at them, they instantly move in, she quits her job and the white knight ends up paying for everything. A few months go past and he realizes it’s a huge mistake to have let her move in and that she has the IQ of a cumquat.

But it’s too late, he’s gone past the point of no return and is unsure how he is going to kick her out. This usually ends up pretty messy and the white knight undoubtedly repeats this process again, and again.

Old fat guy in a wife beater

Most likely divorced and either retired living on his pension or sitting on his dwindling life savings. They tend to keep it classy by drinking in the same bars everyday from around 2pm onwards, wearing the typical wife beater which nicely shows their back and chest hairs to the public. These types of expats usually sits alone gazing at the streets mindlessly, almost as if they are waiting for someone to put a bullet through their head and to be done with this world.

The Western Woman

The first thought when one see’s a white women in Thailand is “Uwotm8?” Nobody has yet deciphered why out of all the places in the world, women picked Thailand to expatriate too. The women expat is hard to spot for some due to Yellow Fever virus.

The women expat is commonly found on a host of online Thailand forums and Facebook groups, usually complaining about the lack of guys who want to date her and not treating her like a little princess and buying her flowers or showering her with gifts. While at the same time failing to realize that she is fatter than most Thai girls, high maintenance and unlike most Thai girls, she wants her opinions to be heard and valued.

The been here too long expat

After talking to this type of expat for about 10-15 minutes you will instantly realize that something is not right. Soon enough it becomes blatantly clear that they need to go back home as they have serious issues. Don’t dare speak Thai or mention the Thai culture around them because they will correct your every word and constantly tell you that they know everything there is to know about Thailand. They tend to have a bitter relationship with the country due to one of the following:

too much drinking/drug abuse

failed businesses

failed relationships

lack of social interaction

been outside the “real” world too long

The best advice for meeting a person like that is to agree with whatever they say then to make a hasty exit.

I take offense to being categorized with the french, the single worst people in the world, though I will admit that most scandis are insular. This is because they have been coddled their entire life in welfare states and now they feel deeply and utterly terrified that they will have to do on their own.

Another expat type you should have mentioned is the ‘Scammer expat’ usually found around red light districts always with a great business opportunity and too low an iq to recognize that they’re not fooling anyone. The scammer expat is often, but not always, a Brit with a chav accent. Nodding and then excusing yourself to go to a game of pakraw seems to work.

I find this all a it derogatory, although this suit most of the people you will find around Nana in Bangkok and Walking Street in Pattaya.

Where I am living just on the outskirts of Bangkok, there is myself who dates white women and Thai alike, and runs quite a busy exporting business. Just down the street from me there is a novelist who quite successfully publishes for a living. One road over is an American family, that is also into exporting. All of us have been here at least ten years and live in decent sized houses. I find this is mostly the same for any ferrang area that is not on the BTS tracks.

There are over 100 000 ferrangs that live full in Thailand that have been here more than five years, and will mostly not fit the stereotypes you find around Nana. Many make well over 100k US a year, and are married with children.

My line of business isn’t quite poker playing and I don’t wear a wife beater, but I am a cross between the two. When not in front of a screen I do sit In Bars and cafés just staring at the world go by. And many would I assume I am hoping someone would just end it for me. But that would be like shooting an old dog, a dog that just likes to sit in a corner happily watching the world.

Where is this coming from? Im a white girl living in Thailand and Im slim and sorry to be honest but Im good looking girl. And the attention I get here is ridicilous. Some Thai women (most of the time the once who are keen to sleep with an ugly white sleezbag guy for money) hate me to bits while rest of the country (thais and expats) adore me everywhere I go…. Are all my expats friends fat and ugly? No they are not. They are beautiful plus they have something to put into their bra! But I know why are you writing like this. Because you are like that type of man you wrote about yourself. The geek who European women don’t like and he think etention from thai prostitues means love… So you started to hate white women or tried to make then look ugly in your own head? Very sad. Get your facts straight and stop playing this game Thai-pretty, white-ugly! There is lots of ugly Thais (especially when they take of their make up) and there are ugly foreigners…but you know what? All those sleezbags speaking like you about white girls still come on to me and keep telling me they know thai women are cheap and they would love to have “proper” girl! So not even they believe that bullshit what comes out of their mouth. If you talk only about english fat girls than maybe you can be right about the avarage size. But the world is bigger than that little island! I bet you delete this anyway. So keep going loosers! Thai prostitues need your money so they can get even more rotten from inside out.

The attention any good looking girl gets here is ridiculous. However, the average frame of a western girl is a lot bigger and fatter than of an Asian girl, so western girls tend to look less attractive. To say otherwise would just be a lie. Your comment also seems to bash all western males who pay for sex which is unfair. Funny, because a big reason why they pay for sex is because they don’t want to here annoying rants from western girls i.e your comment above.

Western women.. you mean women from Anglophone countries? Because white women from otherwise.. are quite thin.. even thinner than Southeast Asians, actually. It helps that whites have higher BMI deviations (meaning less visceral body fat than Asians, all of them, Mongoloids and Indians alike) so they look leaner when at a small weight.

All Google images results from Tyna are pretty hot, story checks out. Eastern European? Sounds like you and your friends may be amongst the 5% exceptions to the rule. I believe Harvie is indeed referring mostly to UK, US and Oz chicks, and is not alone in identifying the growing trends in obesity tied to hardline feminism (a corrupted form of what feminism should be) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHZpU1ykdc8

This is hilarious, nice reading, good insight. I am an Asian American who’s been thinking of living in Thailand when I retire, but am a bit concerned with having nothing to do and sitting in a bar staring the at the world going by, in a wifebeater. Would like to know a few genuine friends there but don’t know where to look and am afraid of scammers.

What I find so very sad–and so telling–is the last line of the author’s description of a Western woman in the Land of Smiles: “…and unlike most Thai girls, she wants her opinions to be heard and valued.”

Sad, telling and true.

Yep, we Western women are guilty of the sin of feeling equal.

And often our Western male counterparts boast (as the author does here) that Thai women do not (seem to) seek that equality.

This says so much more about Western men than it does about Thai or Western women.

It’s so typical of Brits focusing on French (their closest friends/enemies), lol! As I’m French and most of my mates are British, I always felt puzzled as to why I constantly get bashed for being French, e.g.: whether on strike or called frogs lover, really, don’t you think it’s “last century and fucking retarded comments”?! After a while, I just gave up replying as I realized that it’s a real obsessive, compulsive British paradigm. Guys wake-up, most of the traders in the City are French, and appart from the state own businesses, very serious studies proves the high level of our education system and how efficient we are at work – Insead being one of the most renowned business school in the world, but I don’t expect you to know what this is.

Let me refresh your memory with Cantona, the only thing he was striking were goals! And you loved him for it.

As to why we speak French in your company, or another language for that matter, well it’s quite simple and has nothing to do with you, it’s just that naturally, after a hard day at work, the only thing you want is to get a beer and relax, for those not born English speaker, it’s a freaking headache…

By the way, it’s so typical of anglophones to think you are being excluded, but I can assure you, it’s not personal.

As you might guess, the vast majority of the world does not naturally speak English, in fact you have more Spanish speakers! and if you had any cultural interest in discovering what the rest of the world is all about you would learn other languages – British and Americans are notoriously lazy at opening to other culture, it’s easier to just get rid of the locals, right! love Australia by the way! Ouch that hurts doesn’t it?!

So come down from your white horse and start opening up to other people’s culture, learn not just basic French, but Spanish, Italian, Korean, Thai… And you’ll feel a lot less excluded.

You forgot one essential category of expat that are well educated, probably have better English grammar knowledge than you do – another funny fact – along with successful entrepreneur, leaving in Thailand…

Precisely the type of people that have to make up for moronic expats that would deteriorates the reputation of any foreign nations, those that Thai people despise as much as I do. Do you recognize yourself?

Hope this will help your website get more traffic, after all, our comments on your blog can only enrich it.